With a combined $215,000 spent on this year's race for Thousand Oaks City Council, according to the latest campaign finance disclosures, the nine candidates have been employing a host of methods to get their names out.

From traditional signs and mailings to modern websites and social media, council hopefuls have been willing to try just about any avenue to attract voters.

The 2012 race has seen a high number of slate mailers—mass mailings that support or oppose four or more candidates or ballot measures. Candidates pay to have their name and sometimes their photo and customized text appear on the cards, which are produced by for-profit businesses.

Together, incumbent Jacqui Irwin and challenger Jim Bruno have spent $50,000 for campaign mailings, with most of those dollars going to slate mailings.

According to Irwin's campaign finance disclosure, half of her campaign coffers—around $25,000— have gone to mailing houses that send out political material, including newsletters and slate cards.

Irwin paid conservative-leaning Landslide $5,964 for its services in the last three months, according to her filing. Landslide produces slate mailers with titles such as Save Proposition 13, California Public Safety Voter Guide and Woman's Voice.

Herbert Gooch, a political commentator and professor of political science at Cal Lutheran University, said that the mailers may imply a nonexistent affiliation or endorsement of a candidate.

"Slate mailers can give a false front, (suggesting) all cops or firefighters endorse this candidate. You don't know what to count on," said Gooch, who added that voters can identify legitimate endorsements online.

"You can look them up on the Web and see, who is this group? Is it a group that only exists for the election? It's really 'voter beware,'" Gooch said.

The professor said slate mailers are often favored by challengers as a way of getting their names to the public.

"It's a great way for some candidates to get their name out cheaply in lieu of their own mailer. Your campaign is only getting heard if it can be amplified," said Gooch, who noted that a slate mailer may cost about 4 cents each, compared to 20 cents for a personal postcard. Candidates typically spend anywhere between $1,500 and $50,000 to appear on local slates, he said.

The strategy has a downside, he said.

"It's your name and a bunch of other people's names, so it's not the most effective way to (campaign)," Gooch said. "You don't have a chance to say distinctly what you stand for. A targeted mailer is more effective. You get what you pay for."

Bruno has spent $29,803 on the race, and nearly all of that money, $25,878, has gone to mailings, according to campaign finance documents. Several of the mailing companies paid by the Irwin campaign were also used by Bruno.

A familiar name could serve a candidate well on Election Day, he said.

"People can be confused by ballots," he said. "They tend to vote for candidates they recognize. A candidate looks more serious the more times you see their name. People are more comfortable with what they're familiar with (and if) they carry the sense that somehow, on some level, they know who you are."

By Gretchen Wenner
Posted January 14, 2012 at 5:20 p.m.
DiscussPrintAAA
If you're a cop, work in Port Hueneme. A city manager? Oxnard. If you like overtime, get a badge or hospital scrubs.
The second year's batch of salary data for all local city and county workers — part of a new statewide ritual launched in the wake of the Bell city pay scandal in 2010 — provides a peek at public pay and benefits to boost transparency.
Some interesting tidbits from calendar year 2010:
• The local list begins and ends in Oxnard, where City Manager Ed Sotelo nabbed the No. 1 spot with $296,800 and a temporary library aide ranked 14,411th by earning $4.
• The county's seventh-highest earner was an Oxnard police sergeant who took in $255,714 — more than $154,000 above the maximum salary range for that position.
• No city of Ventura employees cracked the Top 20 earners' list, although staffers did from two smaller cities, Camarillo and Moorpark. Other no-shows in the Top 20 were Santa Paula, Port Hueneme, Fillmore and Ojai.
• Four of the five highest-paid employees in one of the county's smallest cities, Port Hueneme, work in the police department. The department's average pay, at just over $96,000, is the highest for law enforcement countywide.
• A total of 2,193 local government employees earned $100,000 or more. More than half of those, 1,210, were in law enforcement or were firefighters.
• 237 employees, the bulk of them in law enforcement or firefighters, exceeded annual salary maximums by more than $50,000 during the year. Eight topped the maximum by more than $100,000.
• 41 people earned more than $200,000.
Although the state database for 2010 salaries was posted a few weeks ago, a complete list for Ventura County wasn't available right away because the city of Ventura's numbers were delayed by computer programming issues.
Jacob Roper, spokesman for state Controller John Chiang's office, said the pay postings have remained popular even after the Bell scandal faded from headlines.
"There's still a ton of interest," he said. "We're still seeing great Web traffic."
There also is greater compliance from local governments, Roper said.
Chiang's office created a website in late 2010 after a series of Los Angeles Times stories drew international attention to the Bell city manager's pay of more than $787,000 — which had been hidden from the public — and other alleged corruption.
"We were glad when the controller launched their site," said David Grau, a board member of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association.
The information does increase transparency, he said, and makes a good starting point, "as long as the viewer understands it may or may not include all compensation."
The controller's numbers allow apple-to-apple comparisons of one slice of information: total wages subject to Medicare taxes. But pay can be more complicated than that.
The controller's system pegs Sotelo's pay, for example, at nearly $297,000. But someone requesting his total compensation from the city of Oxnard would be given a figure totaling $381,767.
Similarly, Ventura County's former chief executive officer, Marty Robinson, came in at $284,666 on the controller's site. The county, which posts names and salary information for high earners, listed Robinson's 2010 total compensation at $333,838.
Other issues can distort specifics.
In Ojai, the No. 5 earner in 2010 was a recreation supervisor. But the salary amount is much higher than normal for that position because of a settlement with the former employee, said Steve McClary, assistant to the city manager.
People who are retiring can cash in vacation days, boosting their pay beyond typical levels, officials said. Certifications, bilingual pay and education incentives also drive up incomes.
And overtime, of course, pushed thousands of workers above maximum salary ranges.
Some who earned the highest amounts above maximums worked for the county's Health Care Agency. A radiologic specialist, a clinical lab scientist and a hospital nurse all earned more than $94,000 above maximums, taking home totals that easily pushed them into healthy six-figure incomes.
Matt Carroll, assistant county executive officer, said the bulk of such additional pay is overtime.
In health care especially, "if you're willing to have no personal life, you can pick up an overtime shift nearly every day you have off," Carroll said.
Department heads are in charge of their own overtime budgets. "If they exceed their budget, they have to answer for it," he said.
Also apparently raking in the overtime were police officers and firefighters.
Jim Cameron, Oxnard's finance director, didn't immediately know the name of the police sergeant who earned $255,714 — the maximum salary for the position is $101,533 — but suspected most of the extra was overtime.
Some overtime is required for police, he said. It's not just for high-profile emergencies like a recent shootout there, but also for more mundane duties such as court appearances, which might be held on an officer's day off.
The police department had been running internal reports to see if some individuals were getting excess overtime, he said, but it hasn't been able to do so lately because it has been short-staffed."We do keep an eye on it," Cameron said. "Unfortunately, overtime is a little bit hard to control."
In Port Hueneme, apparent overtime launched two police sergeants into the city's Top 5 list — above the public works and finance directors. In fact, that city's Top 20 list is dominated by police. In addition to the chief, 13 other police department employees, including seven officers, show up.
Finance Director Robert Bravo agreed some cops there "do very well."
"They're working it all and should be compensated for it," said Bravo, whose own wages were bested by one officer.
In Ventura, where not even the highest-paid employee was among the 20 highest earners countywide, Human Resources Director Jenny Roney said the city has been on an austerity program.
"We haven't given raises in years," she said, nor has Ventura benchmarked its pay levels against other cities.
While Ventura hasn't been hiring much lately, there have been situations over the past couple of years in which prospective employees have refused offers because pay or benefits weren't enough, she said.
City and county officials generally said the pay information was easy to send to the state and that they supported transparency.
Ventura's figures previously had been prepared with a Band-Aid approach, said Rudy Livingston, the city's assistant finance officer. This time, the information was months late because computer folks were figuring ways to create a quality report for easy use in the future.
That much, at least, worked well.
"Next year's report is already done," Livingston said of the 2011 numbers.
Digital editor Gretchen Macchiarella contributed to this report.
2010 salaries for city and county employees
See all of the reports and investigate the salaries for yourself.
Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/jan/14/latest-government-salary-list-reveals-surprises/#ixzz2AYH4GMFX
- vcstar.com

The Multari Curve
By Bill Fulton on 8 October 2012 - 1:48pm
California
Last week I published a short op-ed in the Los Angeles Times suggesting that low-density development patterns are one of the reasons California cities are experiencing fiscal problems. But I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for the type of pushback I got from readers, most of whom seemed to view me as an apologist for public employee unions or as a radical wishing to overturn Proposition 13.
I tried to be careful about how I made my case–acknowledging that public employee pensions are a huge issue no matter what and also acknowledging that Stockton, in particular, made their problems worse with grandiose urban redevelopment projects.
I made a particular point of the fact that, under Proposition 13, the buying power a city gets from a new development project declines over time, especially in relation to the cost of servicing the project. I borrowed this point from a talk I once saw given by Mike Multari, the former San Luis Obispo city planning director and longtime partner in Crawford Multari & Clark. Mike used to draw a chart depicting the revenue-cost curve of a typical development project over time, showing that eventually there’s a crossover where the project runs a deficit. (I’ve replicated The Multari Curve crudely here.)
Mike’s point was that most of a development project’s revenue bump comes at the beginning, with impact fees and a big increase in property tax, but the impact fees go away and after that property tax increases slowly because property isn’t reassessed unless it is sold. His point was that the only way to cover the gap was to keep approving new projects and get a new “hit” of revenue. And it all comes crashing down when the new projects stop coming. Which is what happened in 2008.
I guess I expected that some people wouldn’t believe all this and suggest, instead, that sprawling development projects do make money for cities. Naively, I didn’t expect anything else.
The blowback to the piece came in several waves. First were the online comments posted underneath the piece itself. My article was called everything from “baloney” to “fatuous nonsense” to “commie propaganda.” Several people pointed to sprawling, non-union Texas as proof that I am wrong, as cities there are doing fine compared to cities in California (which, by the way, isn’t true). Substantively, most of the comments were variations on the following themes:
1. I’m an apologist for public employee unions claiming that pensions aren’t a problem.
2. I’m trying to divert attention from my own dismal record as a tax-and-spend liberal on the Ventura City Council.
3. I’m one of those crazy people who think Proposition 13 should be repealed.
None of which I said or meant to imply in the article.
Then came my appearance on Larry Mantle’s normally thoughtful Air Talk show on KPCC. In the interest of balanced journalism, Larry recruited anti-anti-sprawl economist Wendell Cox to refute me. I like Wendell personally, but I don’t care much for his research; in fact, I have devoted considerable effort on CP&DR blog space to tearing it apart.
Wendell predictably argued that I was wrong but then, as he typically does, blamed everything on restrictive land-use regulation. I agreed with him that land-use regulations are often too restrictive and lock in large-lot zoning where it is unnecessary. Then at the very end of the show Wendell circled back to attack SB 375 and the horrors of 30-unit-per-acre zoning (imagine!). I wanted to reply by saying the market’s going in that direction anyway – something Wendell and the other pro-sprawl economists stubbornly refuse to believe -- but Larry was pressed for time.
Subsequently Wendell emailed me in very gentlemanly fashion, so I asked him if he agreed that the market was changing. He said that trying to predict the housing market today would be like trying to predict it in 1931 – his way of saying that the economic downturn has so skewed the market that you can’t tell how it will turn out in the end. Sometimes I wonder whether these pro-sprawl guys have any Millenial kids. And what does all that have to do with the question of whether sprawl costs money?
Then came the L.A. Times letters. As it turns out, nowadays not only does the L.A. Times publish online comments and letters in the paper but they have a whole separate online section called Postscript, in which the author gets to respond to a letter-writer. They gave me two choices, and I chose to respond to Sidney Anderson of Mission Viejo, who said I was only half-hearted in my criticism of pensions and also claimed that I was in favor of repealing Proposition 13, which he claimed had saved his house. “Prop 13 and Sprawl. Sure.” I responded by saying I actually agree with Mr. Anderson on pension reform and that smart growth can help balance a city’s budget within the constraints of Proposition 13.
But even this wasn’t the end of it, because both the interchange with Sidney Anderson and several other letters appeared on the Times web site and in the newspaper, generating even more comments, which – for better or worse – I responded to, thus getting into the weeds of how cities are hemmed in by state pension laws. Which is not exactly where I expected to end up.
I’m happy that the piece attracted so much attention and comment. I don’t expect people to accept everything I say, but I didn’t expect all the curves I’ve gotten in the last week. But one thing I have learned: A picture really is worth a thousand words. So in the future, in order to make my point, I’m just going to draw The Multari Curve.
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Brown Adds Insult to Injury with Redevelopment Vetoes
By Josh Stephens on 30 September 2012 - 9:12am
California Redevelopment
Even the most irate objectors to Gov. Jerry Brown's dismantling of redevelopment held out hope that in agreeing to killing redevelopment, the legislature would invent a new, better system for stoking local economic growth. Yesterday, the governor dashed those hopes.
Facing a total six bills designed to replace aspects of redevelopment or otherwise help cities, Brown vetoed all six. In his veto statements, Brown indicated that it was too soon to consider alternatives. The wind-down process has been tumultuous for many cities, but almost all have clamored for immediate relief for the billions in tax increment funding that they have collectively lost this year.
The vetoed bills include the following:
AB 345 by Assemblymember Norma Torres (D-Pomona) – Redevelopment.
AB 2144 by Assemblymember John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) – Local government: infrastructure and revitalization financing districts.
AB 2551 by Assemblymember Ben Hueso (D-Chula Vista) – Infrastructure financing districts: renewable energy zones.
SB 214 by Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) – Infrastructure financing districts: voter approval: repeal.
SB 1030 by the Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review – Redevelopment Property Tax Trust Fund allocations: excess Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund moneys.
SB 1156 by Senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) – Sustainable Communities Investment Authority.
Most prominent among these were the infrastructure financing bills, as many had hoped that looser restrictions on setting up IFD's -- which currently require 2/3 voter approval -- and SB 1156, which, to complement Senate Bill 375, would have given cities more tools to promote development in districts heavily served by public transit. Many such districts are in former redevelopment project areas.
Brown indicated that he feared that such new tools would distract cities from the burdensome process of winding down their former redevelopment agencies.
"Expanding the scope of infrastructure financing districts is premature," Brown wrote. "This measure would likely cause cities to focus their efforts on using new tools provided by the measure instead of winding down redevelopment. This would prevent the state from achieving the General Fund savings assumed in this year’s budget."
Brown's veto messages indicate that he supported the spirit of many of the bills that he vetoed, thus simultaneously giving cities hope while telling them to hang on for another year.
Brown was unusually complimentary of SB 1156, despite his veto, writing, "the planning and investment that is envisioned by this bill would help to develop and redevelop a California that is sustainable and thriving." But he wrote that he would prefer to "take a constructive look" at such an investment authority after the wind-down is complete.

Home » Blogs » Bill Fulton's blog
Saving Redevelopment One Project at a Time
By Bill Fulton on 23 October 2012 - 10:53am
Last week, in my Insight column available to CP&DR subscribers, I suggested that there were two possible reasons Gov. Brown vetoed SB 1156 and the other redevelopment bills. First, there's still bad blood between him and the cities. And second, he doesn't want to do anything that would stimulate the revival of a redevelopment lobby in Sacramento.
Yesterday, at a redevelopment panel at the American Planning Association, California Chapter, annual conference -- they're calling it APACA now, not CCAPA -- San Jose Planning Director Joe Horwedel reminded me of another possible reason, related to the first two: Brown does not want to bring back redevelopment unless it's accompanied with very strict state oversight as to how tax-increment money is used.
Horwedel's point was a good one, because -- in my view -- this was one of the biggest sticking points between the state and the cities. Most other states have very strict oversight of tax-increment financing; some even have a statewide cap with an allocation process, similar to low-income housing tax credits. California had one standard you had to meet -- blight -- and no oversight.
Had the cities been willing to accept a statewide cap and strict state oversight, redevelopment might exist today. But the leaders of the League of California Cities decided that no redevelopment at all would be better than that kind of redevelopment. And now we have no redevelopment -- and strict state oversight at the Department of Finance regularly vetoes decisions made by the oversight committees in the remnant redevelopment projects.
SB 1156, the best Steinberg bill that Brown vetoed, was a pretty solid piece of legislation -- taking the state general fund out of the game, making tax-increment voluntary and collaborative, and tying it to SB 375. But it still didn't really involve any state oversight. I still think state oversight is going to have to be part of any eventual tax-increment deal, whether cities like it or not.
Yesterday's redevelopment panel, which I was part of, contained some good ideas about how we might move forward. Mostly the ideas focused on refocusing redevelopment on projects, rather than districts, which is more typical of tax-increment arrangements in other states.
Ken Hira of Kosmont Companies in Los Angeles described several post-redevelopment deals for retail projects, which are totally doable without redevelopment because of you can still do a sales-tax sharing deal. Bill Anderson of AECOM in San Diego, the president-elect of the national APA, suggested some possible changes to the Mello-Roos law to make it easier to form urban community facilities districts. (Currently, CFDs require a two-thirds vote -- of voters if there are more than 12 in the district, or of property owners if there are less.)
Anderson's comments reminded me of the tax-increment approach I heard about a couple of weeks ago when I was doing a Smart Growth America technical assistance project in Gwinnett County, Georgia, outside of Atlanta. Georgia allows tax-increment financing districts (known as tax-allocation districts, or TADs) with the consent of school districts, which have to surrender some property tax money. In the case of the declining Gwinnett Place Mall, the school districts went along with project-level TAD because they saw that their property tax revenue would vanish unless something was done.
Of course, in California, the schools don't care, because they're backfilled by the state. But maybe there's a way to persuade the beancounters at the Department of Finance that project-level tax increment can sometimes save and increase property tax revenue in a way that benefits the general fund.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT FORM 460 CONTRIBUTIONS DYE YESTERDAY!! Bruno went auto dealer hunting too and also to those who have given to his partner departing Mayor Jacqui and RETURNED his ill gotten Silver Star $380 checks.

He and Jacqui share the SAME PRINTER in LA paying $7 grand for junk mailers!!

Cal Johnson, a builder orig tried to use a foundation check fro Jackie; NO reply if that was legal; now gave $100 to independent?? Bruno.

HOW DO YOU FIGHT 'em?? City Clerk is protege' of ol' clerk who is politician emeritus and was Mgr of fox campaign Her SON Barry Fisher who is back @ their home is the Treasurer running Jackie campaign while have a nice relationship with city Atty!! DA has endorsed Jackie!! Any justice in this county??

The LOCAL ORD enacted to prevent auto dealers from giving large sums as in 1998 IGNORED by CITY ATTY~~

Ms. Irwin is in violation of Section 1-13.03 of the Thousand Oaks Municipal Code regarding contribution limitations.One of the purposes of this section of the

T.O.M.C., stated in Section 1-13.01(3), is "to eliminate thepossibility of corruption or the appearance of corruption in local elections, arising as a

result of disproportionately large political contributions, by adopting the least restrictive limits

possible on theamounts of money any person may contribute or otherwise cause to be available to candidates

for theCity Council and those who support or oppose such candidates." Under T.O.M.C. Section 1-13.08(b), allegations that such violations have occurred may, in the discretion of the City Attorney, be referred to the Ventura County District Attorney for investigation and prosecution.

1.Re-elect some one who shoved a CM down our throat?? Who did not trust citz to tell us about CMs health!!2. Voted AGAINST citz with ugly , dangerous auto mall sign, held back till the election!!Paid back with HUGE contributions!!http://www.toaks.org/civica/filebank/... 3.Supports $400K income for city Mgr and $200K+ for top city brass4.Supports long week ends for staff every other week/shorter library hrs5.Cancelled CRIME night out, a mere $10000 item!!6.Voted and lectured residents for over expanded Hospital wile Westlake hospital rotted/not used. The Hospital has PAID her back with MANY contributions!!7.She also has many contributions from the Oaks folks who got extra large sign; now Pal Gardens has a Hollywood size sign!!8. Would not hold a hearing to hear about HOOTERS/ they sneaked in and AFTER election will seek alcohol license. 9. She has done nothing about bankrupting pensions!!10. She has supported wasteful RDA spending like $1 for Lakes, $300K for angled parking with NO disabled parking.11. She has NOT tried her best to keep water rates low!! 12. She has NOT amended sign , campaign ordin which benefits incumbents!!13. She is a fox clone, albeit a good looking one and HYPNOTIZED by the $400k city Mgr!!

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT FORM 460 CONTRIBUTIONS DYE YESTERDAY!! Bruno went auto dealer hunting too and also to those who have given to his partner departing Mayor Jacqui and RETURNED his ill gotten Silver Star $380 checks.

He and Jacqui share the SAME PRINTER in LA paying $7 grand for junk mailers!!

Cal Johnson, a builder orig tried to use a foundation check fro Jackie; NO reply if that was legal; now gave $100 to independent?? Bruno.

HOW DO YOU FIGHT 'em?? City Clerk is protege' of ol' clerk who is politician emeritus and was Mgr of fox campaign Her SON Barry Fisher who is back @ their home is the Treasurer running Jackie campaign while have a nice relationship with city Atty!! DA has endorsed Jackie!! Any justice in this county??

The LOCAL ORD enacted to prevent auto dealers from giving large sums as in 1998 IGNORED by CITY ATTY~~

Ms. Irwin is in violation of Section 1-13.03 of the Thousand Oaks Municipal Code regarding contribution limitations.One of the purposes of this section of the

T.O.M.C., stated in Section 1-13.01(3), is "to eliminate thepossibility of corruption or the appearance of corruption in local elections, arising as a

result of disproportionately large political contributions, by adopting the least restrictive limits

possible on theamounts of money any person may contribute or otherwise cause to be available to candidates

for theCity Council and those who support or oppose such candidates." Under T.O.M.C. Section 1-13.08(b), allegations that such violations have occurred may, in the discretion of the City Attorney, be referred to the Ventura County District Attorney for investigation and prosecution.

1.Re-elect some one who shoved a CM down our throat?? Who did not trust citz to tell us about CMs health!!2. Voted AGAINST citz with ugly , dangerous auto mall sign, held back till the election!!Paid back with HUGE contributions!!http://www.toaks.org/civica/filebank/... 3.Supports $400K income for city Mgr and $200K+ for top city brass4.Supports long week ends for staff every other week/shorter library hrs5.Cancelled CRIME night out, a mere $10000 item!!6.Voted and lectured residents for over expanded Hospital wile Westlake hospital rotted/not used. The Hospital has PAID her back with MANY contributions!!7.She also has many contributions from the Oaks folks who got extra large sign; now Pal Gardens has a Hollywood size sign!!8. Would not hold a hearing to hear about HOOTERS/ they sneaked in and AFTER election will seek alcohol license. 9. She has done nothing about bankrupting pensions!!10. She has supported wasteful RDA spending like $1 for Lakes, $300K for angled parking with NO disabled parking.11. She has NOT tried her best to keep water rates low!! 12. She has NOT amended sign , campaign ordin which benefits incumbents!!13. She is a fox clone, albeit a good looking one and HYPNOTIZED by the $400k city Mgr!!